Improvisation

Friday, February 28, 2020 by Gary Johnston | 21-Day Challenge

These past couple of days I've been working on my improv. 

What?! Isn't improv just made up as you go along.

Yes, but mostly no.

There are a lot of parameters to consider when improvising. Things like:

  • What key are you in?
  • What are the chords most common to that key?
  • What scales may be associated with the key and it's chords.
  • Plus many other things as you get more and more advanced.

For the beginner, no matter what the instrument, you can just add the odd "extra" note here and there to a piece you can already play to augment the melody or insert a scalar run or add notes to the harmony (accompanying chord) to add colour to the sound OR remove notes from the melody or harmony.

You can play the I, IV and V7 chords in the LH (piano) and improvise in the RH eg: in the key of C the chords will be C, F and G7 and you can use notes from the C major scale (the white keys) to build a melody.

If you know the blues scale find a backing track on YouTube and play along on the uke or piano.

Keep it light. Keep it fun!

PS: We've made it "over the hump" of our 21-Day Challenge. Congratulations! Keep up the amazing work.

Day 10 - Arpeggios

Wednesday, February 26, 2020 by Gary Johnston | 21-Day Challenge

Day 10 - almost half way!

I do hope you're enjoying the challenge and learning lots.

Today I have a short video demo of arpeggios, what they are and how to play them.

PIANO

https://youtu.be/i4Zsvtvm_g0

UKULELE

https://youtu.be/xbVbRbO56xY

Enjoy this lesson and start adding arpeggios to your practice.

I'm hearing some wonderful things at your lessons. Now I'm off to practice my own arpeggios

Gary


On to week TWO!

Sunday, February 23, 2020 by Gary Johnston | 21-Day Challenge

So here we are Day 8, the first day of the second week.

Let me say I am really noticing an appreciable difference in everybody's playing. The steady, focused day to day practice shows results immediately. Congratulations to you all! YAY!

Today is a day of miscellaneous activity for me. I worked through 10 or 12 of the songs I'm preparing for the Clapton show on March 28, played scales with a metronome and practiced some jazz improv with iReal Pro backing tracks. Then I played just for fun.

I hope you're enjoying your instrument more each day as you discover new music and technique and develop new ways of expressing yourself.

I see many of you are using the student portal to keep track. Bravo!